MIE 330 Final Exam

Analysis and Design of Work

• Responsibility of HR Department

• Job Analysis, Work Analysis, and Job Descriptions

Recruitment

• the process of seeking applicants for potential employment

• recruiting, posting job descriptions, interviewing, testing, coordinating use of temporary employees

• Human resource recruitment is any organizational activity that is designed to affect the number of people who apply for vacancies, the type of people who apply for them, and/or the likelihood that those applying for vacancies will accept positions if offered. 

Selection

• choosing employees

• interviewing, testing, coordinating use of temporary employees

Training and Development

• Training refers to a planned effort by a company to facilitate learning of job-related competencies, knowledge, skills and behaviors by employees.

Compensation and Benefits

• wage and salary administration

• incentive pay

• insurance

• vacation

• retirement plans

• profit sharing

• health and wellness

• stock plans

Performance Management

• performance measures

• preparation and administration of performance appraisals

• feedback and coaching

• discipline

Employee Relations

• attitude surveys

• employee handbooks

• labor law compliance

• relocation and outplacement services

Shared Service Model

• refers to a way to organize the HR function that includes centers of expertise and service centers.

Self-Service

• is the process of giving employees control of HR transactions.

Outsourcing

• refers to the practice of having another company provide services.

Administrative Services

• compensation, hiring, staffing.  

  • An emphasis is placed on resource efficiency and service quality.

Business Partner Services

• developing effective HR systems and helping implement business plans, talent management.  

  • An emphasis is placed on knowing the business and exercising influence—problem solving, designing effective systems to ensure needed competencies.

Strategic Services

• contributing to business strategy based on considerations of human resources.  

  • An emphasis is placed on knowledge of the                competition, the market, and business strategies.

Evidence-Based HRM

• refers to demonstrating that human resources practices have a positive influence on the company’s bottom line or key stakeholders.

  • requires the use of data – from financial statements to employee surveys in order to make decisions based upon hard evidence.

Sustainability

• refers to the ability of a company to survive and succeed in a dynamic competitive environment.

Social Responsibility

• refer to activities that businesses undertake to benefit not just financial outcomes, but social and/or environmental outcomes.

• “corporate social responsibility,” “ creating shared value,” and “triple bottom line”

Balanced Scorecard

• provides a view of the company from the perspective of  internal and external customers, employees and shareholders and is used to:

  • link HRM activities to company’s business strategy.

  • Evaluate extent HR is helping meet company’s strategic objectives.

High-Performance work systems and virtual teams

• essentially “best-practices” in human resource management.

• involve organizing social systems (people) in productive and efficient ways alongside technical systems (written procedures, computer software, etc.).

• Important high-performance work practices include:

  • Work analysis;

  • Systematic selection/hiring

  • Extensive training

  • Pay for performance.

    
    

Customer Service and Quality Emphasis

• customer-driven excellence includes understanding what the customer wants and anticipating futue needs

Diversity Trends in today’s and tomorrow’s workforce

• Diversity includes consideration of a range of different personal backgrounds, including:

  • Age

  • Race and ethnicity

  • Gender

  • Socioeconomic status

  • Nationality

  • Cultural values

• The U.S. workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. 

• To successfully manage a diverse workforce, managers must develop a new set of skills, including:

  1. Communicating effectively

  2. Coaching and developing others

  3. Providing fair and impartial performance feedback

  4. Creating an inclusive work environment.

Trends in Generations of Employees

Healthcare Issues at Work

Characteristics of an Ethical Company

• Ethics are the fundamental principles of right and wrong by which employees and companies interact.

• Ethical principles include: 

  1. The emphasis of mutual benefits; 

  2. Employees assuming responsibility for company actions;

  3. Meaningful corporate vision for employees; and

  4. Fairness.

• Ethical HR practices involve:

  • The greatest good for largest number of people

  • Rights of privacy, due process, consent, and free speech

  • A code of ethics and other policies.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

• strict set of rules for corporate behavior and sets heavy fines and prison terms for noncompliance

The Global Challenge

The Technology Challenge

Equal Employment Opportunity

• general term which describes the government’s efforts to ensure that individuals have an equal chance for employment, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

• 

Laws, Regulations, and Enforcement Agencies (Table 3.1)

Disparate Treatment

• exists when individuals in similar situations are treated differently based upon their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability status.

• Disparate treatment is often intended.

• Proof of Disparate Treatment:

  • Plaintiff belongs to a protected group

  • Plaintiff applied for and was qualified for the job

  • Plaintiff was rejected

Disparate Impact

• occurs when an employment practice thought to be neutral disproportionately excludes a protected group from employment opportunities.

• Disparate impact is often unintended.

• Proof of Disparate Impact:

  • Four-fifths rule (80%)

  • standard deviation rule.

Reasonable Accommodation

• places a special obligation on an employer to affirmatively do something to accomodate an individual’s disability or religion

• this theory is violated when an employer fails to make reasonable accommodation

Affirmative Action

• originally conceived as a way of taking extra effort to attract and retain employees from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups

• resorted to quota-like hiring

Quid Pro Quo

• occurs when some type of benefit or punishment is made contingent upon the employee submitting to sexual advances.

Hostile Work environment

occurs when someone's behavior in the workplace creates an environment that makes it difficult for someone of a particular sex to work.

Standard Deviation Rule

• uses actual probability distributions to determine adverse impact

• uses the difference between expected representation or hiring rates for visible minorities and the actual representation to determine whether the difference between these two values is greater than would occur by chance

4/5ths Rule

• 80% rule or the "adverse impact" rule, is a principle used in employment discrimination law to determine if a selection process is discriminatory.

• It states that if the selection rate for a particular group is less than 80% of the selection rate for the group with the highest selection rate, then the selection process is considered discriminatory.

Occupational Safety and Health Act and Administration

• authorizes the federal government to establish and enforce occupational safety and health standards for all places of employment engaging in interstate commerce.

• Under OSHA, employees have the right to:

  • Request an inspection.

  • Have a representative present at an inspection. 

  • Have dangerous substances identified.

  • Be  promptly informed about exposure to hazards and be given access to accurate records regarding exposures.

  • Have employer violations posted at the work-site.

Strategic Management

• is a process to address the organization’s competitive challenges by integrating goals, policies and action sequences into a cohesive whole.

• Strategic Human Resource Management: is the pattern of planned HR activities and deployments intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals.

Role of HRM in Strategy Formulation (linkages)

• Strategies to create a competitive advantage come in two basic forms:

  • Overall cost leadership – that is, producing the lowest cost products or services;

  • Differentiation strategy – this is, creating the perception that products or services are different from others in the industry.

• Porter also discusses five forces that shape strategy:

  • Rivalry among existing competitors

  • Bargaining power of suppliers;

  • Threat of substitute products or services;

  • Bargaining power of buyers.

  • Threat of new entrants;

SHRM Process Model

• A pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals.

• Formulation, Implementation

Strategy Formulation

• The process of deciding on a strategic direction by defining a company’s mission and goals, its external opportunities and threats, and its internal strengths and weaknesses.

Mission

• a statement of the organizations reason for being

  • usually specifies the customers served, the needs satisfied, and the values received by the customers, and technology used

• often accompanied by a mission statement

Goals

• What an organization hopes to achieve in the medium- to long-term future.

SWOT Analysis

• strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

Strategy Implementation

• The process of devising structures and allocating resources to enact the strategy a company has chosen.

Overall Cost Leadership

• according to Porter, focuses on becoming the lowest cost producer in an industry

• achieved by constructing efficient large-scale facilities by reducing costs through capitalizing on the experience curve, and by controlling overhead costs and costs in areas such as research and development, service, sales force, and advertising

Differentiation Strategy

• attempts to create the impression that a the company’s product or service is different from the of others in the industry

• can come from creating a brand image, from tech, from offering unique features or customer service

• if a company succeeds in differentiating its product, it will achieve above-average returns, and the differentiation may protect it from price sensitivity

Forces that shape strategy (Porter)

• Rivalry among existing competitors;

• Threat of new entrants;

• Bargaining power of suppliers;

• Threat of substitute products or services;

• Bargaining power of buyers.

Cascio (2009)

Work-Flow design

•  the process of analyzing the tasks necessary for the production of a product or service, prior to allocating and assigning these tasks to a particular job category or person. 

• In a work-flow design, consideration is made of:

  • Inputs;

  • Resources;

  • Human capital;

  • Work activities;

  • Outputs.

Work-Unit activity analysis

• 

Work analysis

• also known as job analysis) is the process of getting detailed information about the work that is assigned to individuals or groups in an organization.

• Work analysis has been called the building block of everything that the personnel department does.

• Indeed, the following human resource practices rely upon a detailed understanding of work:

  • Work redesign;

  • Recruitment;

  • Selection;

  • Training;

  • Performance appraisal;

  • Job evaluation.

  
  

Centralization

• dimension of organizational structure

Departmentalization

• dimension of organization structure

Functional Structure

• employs a functional departmentalization scheme with high levels of centralization. 

Divisional Structure

• employs a workflow departmentalization and low levels of centralization. 

Job Description

• list of the tasks, duties, and responsibili­ties (TDRs) that a job entails.

Job Specification

• a list of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that an individual must have to perform the job.

Occupational Information Network (O*NET)

• uses common language that generalizes across jobs to describe the abilities, work styles, work activities, and work context required for various occupations that are more broadly defined

Dictionary of Occupational Titles

• 1930’s

• DOT no longer served its purpose

• abandoned for ONET

• link demand for skills and the supply of skills in the US workforce

Position Analysis Questionnaire

• standardized job analysis questionnaire containing 194 items

• represents work behavior, conditions, and job characteristics

• 6 Sections:

  • Information Input (where and how a worker gets info)

  • Mental Processes (reasoning, decision-making, planning)

  • Work Output (physical activities, tools, devices)

  • Relationships with other Persons

  • Other Characteristics

Mechanistic Approach

• this approach has its roots in classical industrial engineering and focuses on designing jobs around the concepts of task specialization, skill simplification, and repetition.

Motivational Approach

• the job characteristics model which emphasizes the importance of motivation job characteristics, including: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

Forecasting

• he attempts to determine the supply of and demand for various types of human resources to predict areas within the organization where there will be future labor shortages or surpluses.

• Determine Labor Demand

  • Derived from product/service demanded;

  • External in nature.

• Determine Labor Supply

  • Internal movements caused by transfers, promotions, turnover, retirements, etc.

Leading Indicator

• An objective measure that accurately predicts future labor demand.

Transitional Matrix

• identify employee movements in different job categories over time.

Options for Surplus (5.2)

Options for Shortages (5.3)

Downsizing

• fast speed but high human suffering

• The planned elimination of large numbers of personnel, designed to enhance organizational effectiveness.

Outsourcing

• fast speed and high revocability

• An organization’s use of an outside organization for a broad set of services.

Offshoring

• A special case of outsourcing, in which the jobs that move leave one country and go to another.

Workforce Utilization Review

• A comparison of the proportion of workers in protected subgroups with the proportion that each subgroup represents in the relevant labor market.

Job Choice (5.4)

Recruitment Policies

• Internal versus external recruiting—A decision must be made on whether to recruit from within or outside the organization. 

• Extrinsic and intrinsic rewards—Lead‑the‑market pay strategy is a policy of paying higher than current market wages.

• Employment‑at‑will policies state that either party in the employment relationship can terminate that relationship at anytime, regardless of cause. 

• Due process policies formally lay out the steps an employee can take to appeal a termination decision. 

• Image advertising promotes an organization as a good place to work in general and may be particularly important for organizations in highly competitive labor markets that perceive themselves as having a bad image.

Employment-at-will-Policies

• Policies stating that either an employer or an employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, regardless of cause.

Due Process Policies

• Policies by which a company formally lays out the steps an employee can take to appeal a termination decision.

Direct Applications

• People who apply for a job vacancy without prompting from the organization.

Referrals

• People who are prompted to apply for a job by someone within the organization.

Recruiter’s Functional Areas, Traits, and Realism

• Recruiters: Recruiters may have more impact depending on a number of factors.

  • 1.  Recruiter’s functional area—The recruiter is likely to be perceived as more credible if he or she is from the same functional area the recruit is being considered for.

  • 2. Recruiter‘s traits—Critical traits appear to be warmth and “informativeness.”

  • 3. Recruiter's realism—Deceiving candidates about the negative elements of a job may increase later turnover.

Reliability

• The degree to which a measure of physical or cognitive abilities, or traits, is free from random error.  

  • If a measure of a stable characteristic is reliable, the score a person receives will be consistent over time and over different contexts.  

  • Reliability is a necessary but not sufficient characteristic of a good measuring device.

  • Major types:

    • Correlation coefficient;

    • Test-retest reliability.

Validity

• The extent to which a performance measure assesses all the relevant –and only the relevant- aspects of job performance.

Criterion-Related Validation

• a substantial correlation between test scores and job-performance scores

  • Predictive validity;

  • Concurrent validity.

Predictive Validation

• A criterion-related validity study that seeks to establish an empirical relationship between applicants’ test scores and their eventual performance on the job.

Concurrent Validation

• A criterion-related validity study in which a test is administered to all the people currently in a job and then incumbents’ scores are correlated with existing measures of their performance on the job.

Content Validation

• the items, questions, or problems posed by a test are a representative sample of the kinds of situations or problems that may occur on the job.

• A test-validation strategy performed by demonstrating that the items, questions, or problems posed by a test are a representative sample of the kinds of situations or problems that occur on the job.

Generalizability

• the degree to which the validity of a selection method established in one context extends to other contexts.

Utility

• The degree to which the information provided by selection methods enhances the effectiveness of selecting personnel in real orga­nizations. 

• Utility is impacted by reliability, validity, and generaliz­ability. 

Legality

• All selection methods must conform to existing laws and legal precedents

• The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (an exten­sion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) protects individuals from discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, and national origin with respect to hiring as well as compensation and working conditions.  The 1991 CRA:

  • Defines employers' obligation to establish the business necessity of any neutral‑appearing selection method that has adverse impact on protected groups;

  • Allows for juries to hear discrimination complaints;

  • Prohibits the granting of preferential treatment to minority groups.

Situational Interview

• An interview procedure where applicants are confronted with specific issues, questions, or problems that are likely to arise on the job. 

• defined as a dialogue initiated by one or more persons to gather information and evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for employment.

•   It is the most widely used selection method, although research suggests it can unreliable, low in validity, and biased against a number of groups.

• The utility of an interview can be increased by the following sugges­tions

  • Interviews should be structured, standardized, and focused on accomplishing a small number of goals oriented to skills and behaviors that are observable.

  • Interviewers should plan to come out of each interview with a quantitative rating.

  • Interviewers should also have a structured note-taking system that will aid recall when it comes to satisfying the ratings.

Cognitive Ability Tests

• differentiate individuals based on their mental rather than physical capacities. 

• One of the major drawbacks to these tests is that they typically have adverse impacts on some minority groups.

Verbal Comprehension

• refers to a person’s capacity to understand and use written and spoken language.

Quantitative Ability

• concerns the speed and accuracy at which one can solve arithmetic problems.

Reasoning Ability

• refers to a person’s capacity to invent solutions to many diverse problems.

Personality Inventories

•  categorize individuals relative to what they can do, personality measures tend to categorize individuals by what they are like. 

• Common dimensions assessed are extroversion, adjustment (also called emotional stability), agreeableness, conscientiousness, and inquisitiveness (also called openness to experience).

Work Sample Tests

• attempt to simulate the job in a pre-hiring context to observe how the applicant performs.

Assessment Center

Honesty Testing

• attempts to assess the likelihood that employees will steal.

Formal Training

• refers to training and development programs, courses and events that are developed and organized by the company.

Informal Learning

• refers to learning that is learner initiated, involves action and doing, is motivated by intent to develop, and does not occur in a formal setting.

Continuous Learning

• a learning system that requires employees to understand the entire work process and expects them to acquire new skills, apply them on the job, and share what they have learned with other employees.